


Love Is Patient, Love Is Kind, And Love Is Also Very Blind

by lapsus_calami



Category: Psych
Genre: Gen, M/M, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Short, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 09:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6561325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsus_calami/pseuds/lapsus_calami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In spite of calling himself the Vault of Secrets, Gus isn’t well known for being able to keep them and usually cracks under pressure like a soft-boiled egg. But there is one secret Gus has kept from everyone, including Shawn, maybe especially Shawn, for many years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is Patient, Love Is Kind, And Love Is Also Very Blind

**Love Is Patient, Love Is Kind, And Love Is Also Very Blind**

Burton Guster is in love with Shawn Spencer. It's a fact.

He's pretty sure he's been in love with Shawn for years, and he's equally sure that no one else knows.

Sometimes he wonders how Shawn _doesn't_ know, but for all his observation Shawn has always been kind of oblivious to things staring him right in the face.

Sometimes he thinks Henry knows. He'll catch Henry looking at him with an unsettlingly thoughtful expression like he's wearing his feelings on his sleeve for all to see. Like he has a blinking neon sign on his forehead that reads, "I'm in love with my best friend." But then the look will fade away and Henry will make an asinine comment about how he could stand being friends with Shawn after all these years. And he just breathes a sigh of relief because maybe he's not as obvious as he thinks and spits out a reply that's a lame half truth—like how he didn't realize he was signing a lifetime contract when he agreed to share his licorice on the playground all those years ago but apparently it was ironclad and there's no getting out of now—while the truth thrums constant in each beat his heart skips every time Shawn smiles at him.

He doesn't quite know when it happened; sometimes thinks it happened the same way a frog will let itself be boiled alive if it happens slowly enough. But somewhere along the course of their friendship he went and fell in love with his best friend. Somewhere along the line the warm swell of affection crossed into all out exasperated adoration and fondness.

He's not quite sure how it happened either, but he thinks it has something to do with extended exposure. There's something about Shawn that just makes it inexorably difficult to hate him, even if you think you do at first. Somewhere along the line you find yourself just shaking your head and thinking, “That’s Shawn,” with a certain kind of affectionate acceptance. If you spend too long around him you can't help but fall a little in love. And if you spend the better part of your formative years practically joined at the hip, well, no one can blame you for basking in the light of the sun and growing to love it.

He used to think it was normal. Used to think everyone felt the way he did about their best friends.

It isn’t until Shawn is gone and he’s making new friends at college that he gets clued in. His first real girlfriend breaks up with him out of the blue and, at the time, her reason of him being in love with someone else, of him being in love with _Shawn_ , doesn’t make much sense.

But it plants the seed, and by the time Shawn has come back to Santa Barbara he realizes Beth had been right. He’s in love with an idiot named Shawn Spencer, and suddenly everything is different.

Every time Shawn smiles at him, _really_ smiles at him, that barely there and genuine grin that Shawn only ever gives to him, his heart skips a beat and his stomach swoops like he's flying through the clouds. Every time Shawn touches him, just casual claps on the shoulder and frequent fist bumps, his skin tingles and it feels like a bit of Shawn's warmth seeps into him. Every time Shawn skips into his office or apartment his immediate reaction of annoyance or irritation is quickly tempered by an exasperated fondness, and he always finds himself following Shawn like a moth chasing the light. Every time Shawn swipes his credit card or he finds himself in possession of a bill that doesn't belong to him he rolls his eyes and pays it anyway because there's a part of him that likes it. And the first year he claims Shawn on his taxes, he's kind of shocked by how the implication that he's the person that supports Shawn makes him feel. It's a sense of warmth and satisfaction that far out shines anything he's felt before. And the next time he gives Shawn his credit card for a vacation and pens Shawn’s name and long ago memorized social security number on his tax forms, he anticipates and savors that feeling of fond satisfaction.

Other people don't understand, and he's never surprised. Because he knows what it looks like on the surface, knows that from an outside point of view Shawn comes off as selfish and he comes off as a doormat. Because other people don't get to see what he does. Shawn doesn't show the world the parts of himself that he'll let Gus see. He's the only one that's allowed to see Shawn's serious side or Shawn's caring side. Everyone else has to wade through all of Shawn's jokes and battle through his walls, and some times Gus has to as well but not always and never for as long. Sometimes Shawn will just let him in, and sometimes he thinks it’s the best feeling in the world to have that.

And maybe Shawn drags him to dangerous crime scenes or forgets when they have plans or abandons him on a whim when something shiny catches his attention. But Shawn also brings him milkshakes at two in the morning and curls up on the couch with him to watch Scooby Doo when he's in a bout of nightmares, and Shawn has his back all the time from being a wingman to reel in the adorable girl at the end of the bar to standing confidently at his side during the inevitable confrontations with less than savory individuals.

And at the end of the day, no matter how many people Shawn calls friends during the sunshine hours, it's him that Shawn comes to when he needs time to decompress. To come down from the high of the day or the stress of a case. It's his bed Shawn will crash in to finally sleep after three straight days of being awake, and it’s his apartment Shawn will hide in when the outside world gets too overwhelming. It's his touch Shawn will seek out when he's feeling needy, and it's his words of comfort Shawn will take to heart even as he assiduously ignores everyone else. It's his coat Shawn will steal when he's cold, and he's the only one allowed to steal Shawn's French fries, even the accidental curlys.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to others, but it works. Loving Shawn is like being strapped to a comet and drug across the sky on a fiery path of adventure that, admittedly, sometimes crashes and burns, but he wouldn't trade it for anything.

He does wonders sometimes what would happen if he told Shawn. Wonders on quiet nights if Shawn could ever love him the way he loves Shawn. He doesn’t let himself think about it during he day, and certainly doesn't think about it when Shawn is around. But it's not hard to not think about it when Shawn is beside him talking about something random and inane.

Because it's times like those, with Shawn warm and rambling beside him, that he thinks this will be enough.

And it's every other time that he knows, eventually, it won't be.

It's why he doesn't stop dating, doesn't stop meeting and loving others—Mira, Ruby, Rachel. It's why he doesn't completely fall apart every time those relationships end whether from Shawn's interference or his own self-sabotage. It's also why he does fall apart when Shawn starts seeing Abigail and, later, Juliet.

It's worse with Juliet, really, because he can see how much Shawn loves her and he finally has an answer to his long unanswered question.

It's why he feels like he’s been punched in the gut when he finds the ring in Shawn's Nintendo DS, and it's why he clings so damn hard to Rachel when he realizes he actually could have loved that girl. For once it's not his fault or Shawn's, but Rachel still joins the ranks of women in his past.

It's why he knows even before Shawn tells him in a goddamn video that Shawn is moving to San Francisco, and it's why he only turned around twelve times before committing himself to following. It's why he cries and smiles so much his face hurts when Shawn finally gets engaged. It's why his heart pounds so hard his chest aches as he stands next to Shawn in a suit and tie, and it's why his throat closes up so he almost can't give his best man speech. But then Shawn smiles at him and he does it anyway.

Because Burton Guster is in love with an idiot named Shawn Spencer, and he's the only one who knows.

And it doesn't make sense, and no one else really understands because he can't explain it to them and he can't answer their questions.

So when his mom asks why he's stayed friends with Shawn this long and followed him to San Francisco he just answers with a simple, "Because."

When Henry asks how he handles Shawn so well he just shrugs and says, "Practice."

When Lassie asks how he can deal with Shawn’s antics all the time he just replies, "I'm used to it."

And when Juliet asks him why he knows things about Shawn that she doesn't he just assures her, "Shawn loves you, always has."

But the silent answer to all those questions that sits on his tongue forever unspoken is, "Because he's Shawn, and I love him."

**Author's Note:**

> This all came about from an insomnia induced contemplation on Gus' and Shawn's relationship. Although I don't have any preferred parings in Psych and usually read gen (and consider Shawn and Gus as the most awesome of brotp) I did stumble upon this one fic where Shawn was secretly in love with Gus, which prompted an in depth consideration of their relationship through a romantic lens to which I eventually reached the conclusion that out of the two of them it was far more likely for Gus to be secretly in love with Shawn. He is, after all, the one who puts up with all of Shawn's shit, pays his bills, claims him as a dependent, gets upset and practically pines whenever Shawn dates (while Shawn just gets flat out jealous) and gives up everything in Santa Barbara to follow Shawn to San Francisco (something Shawn did for Juliet).


End file.
